Age before beauty

As I've mentioned, oh, about ten zillion times, I worship at the altar of Celeste the Skin Goddess pretty much every 5 weeks or so.

Or at least I used to. Before she mysteriously disappeared.

The backstory on all this is that this lady named Sheri owns the skin place. Celeste worked for her for about...oh, two years? Sheri is probably in her early 40's whereas Celeste is a whopping 26 years old.

I felt like they seemed to get along okay when I first started going there. But over the past few months, I noticed that as Celeste's personal life seemed to get rockier, things at work weren't going so well either. Celeste is a really sweet girl, but she is a freaking emotional trainwreck. She broke up with her boyfriend of three years back in January and had been dating this guy in a rock band off and on over the past three months. She had been living with the ex and got so dependent on the two-income household that moving out on her own had proven to be very difficult - not only financially, but emotionally too. Not to mention the rocker guy was way immature and younger than her, so they broke up and got back together a few dozen times. Every time I went in there, she had some new stories to tell me.

Honestly, I enjoyed it. She was fun to talk to, and of course who doesn't like to play the Mama Bear in a situation like that. She always listened to my advice and even if she didn't take it, I think it helped her just get some things off her chest.

Then, a few months ago, she mentioned to me that she hoped she hadn't ever offended me with her stories. I guess maybe someone had complained to Sheri, her boss, about it? I assured her that no, it hadn't offended me at all and actually I enjoyed having an hour of just girl talk. It was fun.

Four weeks ago, I got a call from the skin place's receptionist telling me that they needed to cancel my appointment with Celeste because, um, she no longer worked there. Huh? I immediately panicked. What was I going to do?

In the back of my mind, though, I was a teensy bit relieved. Let's face it...I'm not getting any younger. After the previous few visits, I had become a little dissatisfied with Celeste's service. She was constantly pushing products and trying all kinds of crazy stuff on me. And I felt like my skin wasn't really getting any better - if anything it was getting worse. It felt dry and rashy and was very prone to breakouts as well. I had been toying with the idea of switching over to Sheri with the hopes that having an "older" woman handling it that I would be happier with the results. So I set an appointment with her and went.

I'm glad I did. She set me up with a slightly tweaked program and enough samples to get me through a few weeks. And I have been pleased. Very pleased. Not to mention I have fewer steps to my skincare regimen than I ever have, with much better results.

Today, I walked by April's office and she waved me in. She had heard from Celeste - as a matter of fact, they had lunch a few weeks ago and Celeste said she's moved on to a new place. And she wants to know if I'm going to follow her.

No. I'm not going to. While Sheri isn't as "fun" as Celeste, she certainly is nice. And really, the last appointment was really relaxing as we talked about our kids and green tea and summer vacations. I walked out with a bag of samples and was very happy with the results. Not to mention that I was totally relaxed. It was just what the doctor ordered.

Maybe this old lady needed another old lady after all. And a big bottle of thermal spring water, to boot.